Everyone quiet but you all got quite all by yourself with no direction. My name is jason botel with the department of education. I want to welcome you and thank you very much for coming to the k12 education summit. We appreciate you all being here and looking forward to a great conversation. In just a moment secretary devos oh, but before she does just what wanted to say couple housekeeping things. We have bottled water and coffee in the back seat can feel free to partake. And there are restrooms at the ends of the holes. If you do leave the building you can come back in but you have to go through security again, so just wanted to warn you about that. Those of you who will be participating in the conversation, you have microphones in front of you, you do need to turn the von when youre about to talk. Theres a button that says talk. The red light will come on which will tell you microphone is active. When youre not speaking please turn it off. We would appreciate that and you would probably prefer we dont hear any private conversations. Those who are speaking today will ask that you keep remarks to about ten minutes. I will be sitting next to the secretary tied up at the head of the table, and i will try not to be obnoxious but i may waive or give an indication if youre getting close to the ten minutes and ask you wrap up quickly when that happens. We are looking for to a great conversation talking about innovation in k12, and now it is my honor to introduce the person whos i did this was and were happy to be with her here this morning, secretary betsy devos. [applause] thanks so much, jason. And good morning, everyone. Its great to see everyone here this Morning Bright and early. I want to begin by thanking you for attending todays summit and for all of you who are participating, were very grateful for your participation, your willingness to be here, i take your time and show your thoughts. Last week had a robust and very thought provoking discussion of how innovative educators, administrators and institutions are transforming Higher Education for their students its a todays focus on k12 education we are very excited about and looking forward to hearing from the knowledge and expertise right here in the room with us. Before we begin on what to say a quick word about the focus on innovation. Earlier this year i embarked on a rethink school to work were revisited learning environments from wyoming to indiana. All of which are taking creative approaches to education for students of all ages. I continue to travel the country. Its one of the favorite parts of the job is to be able to go visit to see great work that is being done in multiple places. And ive really been inspired by the innovative educators and administrators i had met thus far. What theyre still not enough innovation. We need more like them and we did more creativity, and we need more like you here with us. The reality is there are number of challenges and opportunities facing an american student. In washington, d. C. Does not have all the answers. Government is not the best at finding new solutions to tough problems. Government isnt the best at being flexible or adaptable to constantly changing environment. And government certainly isnt the best at questioning the status quo. But government can be good at bringing people together to highlight their creative thinking and new approaches. So today were brought education leaders and entrepreneurs from across the country to share how they are improving education for the students they serve. While you here represent a Diverse Group of schools and organizations from across the education landscape, the common denominator is that each of you began icing a problem or a deficiency or an insufficiency. You question why it was that way, then you develop a solution to fix it or make it better. Youll approaches paul probably under todays theme, helping each child realize his or her unique potential, shifting the paradigm, and customizing learning. Its these types of thinking that we need more of. I would argue lots more of, in American Education today. We need to question everything, look for ways in which we can improve and embrace the imperative of the change. Each of you have embraced that mindset, enter students are reaping the rewards. Because at the end of the day, success shouldnt be measured by how many dollars are spent or how many kids are passed along to the next stage. Success should be determined by how your educating and preparing each student for todays and tomorrows challenges. So lets treat today as an opportunity to share whats working in your respective world, and where impediments at any level of government are preventing you from achieving your mission of serving students. Take iq again for being here to, and im really looking forward to the conversation. Thanks. [applause] thank you, madam secretary. So were going to get started at the honor of introducing our presenters. In case ill introduce the people who would be speaking at that portion. The first person will go up and speak of them we had the other person go right up afterwards and speak, and after the second last person if any of the situation is done, we will start the discussion. First up we will hear from two speakers and the topic of attaining childhood potential. One is tom rooney, the movie from Stephen Mauney, superintendent of the School District. Good morning, thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about the lindsay journey in the work weve done for lindsay learners. This slide will give a little bit of context as to who we are, and some of the challenges that lindsay learners face. If you look at our demographics there, we are our World Community in the Central Valley of california, 100 of our learners on free and reduced lunch. We have high numbers of english learners, and when you look at that bottom statistics of 44 f our learners are from a home where one or both of the parents did not graduate from high school, and the average education level is fifth grade in the community, the only hope that the lindsay children have is an Effective School system to serve them. And the importance of that. Keep these demographics in mind as you see some of the successes that we demonstrated on one of the later slides. A piece of data that is not up there is that 13 of lindsay children meet the federal definition of homeless. To further help you understand our context, want to start out with the story of a real Lindsay Lerner before we started our transition to performancebased system. This story goes back to a couple of days after High School Graduation around 20082009. High school we just hired a New High School principal, and he was in his office unpacking his bags. While he was there putting books on the shelf, there was a knock at the door and the secretary said, mr. Hammons, mr. Gonzales is here to see you with the sun, junior the principal said bring him in. I just started, but have him come in. Mr. Gonzales enters with his son. Hello, how are you. Come on in, mr. Gonzales. Nice to meet you. Mr. Hammons, i want to let you know that my son just graduated from Lindsay High School two days ago. Oh, great. How exciting. So whats the plan now . He says thats what im here to talk to you about. Come on, sit down. Whats going on . Says mr. Hammons, my son has a a High School Diploma from Lindsay High School in his hands. Could you give me that newspaper up there on the shelf . Mr. Hammons reaches back, gives the newspaper to mr. Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales puts it in front of his son and says go ahead, son, read this newspaper for mr. Hammons, the new principal at Lindsay High School. Come on, read the article right here. After a moment of silence, junior puts his head down and begins to cry and says, dad, you know i dont know how to read. That was a real lindsay learner, and there were hundreds or thousands of them that we failed over the years. And you know what . The traditional model, there are people all across our country for getting a High School Diploma that makes them feel like theyre ready for life, like accomplished something, and many of them are in the same situation as junior. Some for the context of what did we do then and what did we build. We all know this person, steve jobs. Now, steve jobs was creating the ideal listening experience. He was not saying how do i sell more cds. He was saying, what is the ideal experience that listeners need . And he created itunes. Thats innovation. We know this person. Looks little different these days but this is the early days of jeff bezos. He was thinking what is the ideal reading experience . We used to buy our books here, and now its not just books. But now we shop for everything because its the ideal reading experience and the ideal Shopping Experience here i bet you know these folks. I see a few starbucks cups on the tables out there. It wasnt about making Better Coffee or more coffee. It was about creating the ideal coffee experience. So what have we done in lindsay . In lindsay we took some of the same things and we said, so what is the ideal learning experienc experience . Not that its needed for adults, not so that it can be convenient, what is the ideal learning experience that can meet every child at their level, ensure their success, challenging them, and make sure that they can become, at the academic and personal excellence in life. So this is a simple visual because people have asked us as we bid on this journey for seven date years, people have asked us what is a you doing at lindsay . This visual captures it all. Its founded on a preacher focused strategic design, that at the very bottom, that is the voice of the community saying this is what we believe our learners. So key part of our system is engaging our community to take ownership for the learners in the community. When the community invest in it, and we become servants of the community as leaders. At the very center is the ideal learning experience, and all around those are various components of our system that we have built. From advancing and developing leadership to instruction to technology. You can see all of those pieces. I could spend days and back each of those little pieces of the puzzle. And it all rests on a culture of empowerment, a culture of investment, culture of growth mindset and a culture that is learner centered, radical and uncompromisingly learner centered. In lindsay, a huge major element of this is its all about the learner. And everything we do is about lindsay learners. Im going on back just a couple of these pieces. One, i want to talk about, when you look at this we come back to this, all to my this is what were building in lindsay. Its not just meeting them at their level, challenging them in making sure their successful. Because at lindsay its not about grade levels, what grade you in or how old you are. Its where you are in the learning. When you meet a learner at their level, they experienced success in a different way that theyve never been a treating it before. An example would be a learner who might be seven years old. Doesnt go straight into the second grade. What if hes ready for the fifth grade content . So we allow the grouping and regrouping of learners to ensure that there met at their development to learning level. The most important is the last line on this slide. We have a system literally where our children of poverty who are learning english literally desire to come back to school each and every day. Youll see some statistics that demonstrate that in a moment. A key piece we focused on was Leadership Development. So i cant stress enough the focus that we would need to have in our Educational Transformation in our communities and our country about focusing on the leadership. Because without the leadership it is limited as to how far it will go. This visual shows the Many Organizations operate. Unfortunately how many Public Schools in america operate. There is no clear direction. Theres a lot of people working really hard, deeply committed to children, but going in different directions. One of the key pieces we did was we initially started with our community and we created the strategic design which gave us the direction, a very clear direction about where we need to go to great a learner centered system. Within also found that there is a lot of people know that were in our system that was were stl going in different directions, and thats the inside arrow you see in this visual. So as you develop an focus on leadership, and leadership at every level of the organization from the learners to the Teaching Staff which really refer to learning facilitators to the secretary jewell staff, to the formal leaders as principals, assistant principals and district staff, because in lindsay this is what we have. We have deep levels of alignment towards the vision, towards our learners and commitment to our learners. And we have every person the organization working towards that. Our bus drivers do not drive buses. They transport children so that they can go to learning environment to learn. The folks in our temperature did not provide food for our learners. They provide nutritious meals so our learners can learn, and it will tell you that. Thats the commitment all about the learning. So i have to stress significantly the Leadership Development at how important that is in order to transfer learning in our country. I key piece of the puzzle is also transformational technology. I would clearly say that technology is not the answer. Its not about putting a device in front of every learner. Thats not what is customized learning is all about. It really is more about using technology in a transgression the way, took some the learning and allows learners to work at different paces and to be met at the developmental need. One of the things we provide in lindsay, and work towards, is a Community Wide wifi project. We not only provide access, every single inch of it has access to the computer and internet at school and at home. When we provided a a computer r every single lindsay learner, and what we realized is only 40 of them had connectivity to the internet. So in communities particularly Rural Communities of poverty, having limited access to the internet is a great issue with regard to access to quality learning. So in lindsay we work with our local community, and we now have community, with access for 95 of our learners and parents have access to the internet, and have their own computer that they can use to access learning. And what weve done and i will show in a moment that we pushed nearly all of our content online. We have learner Management System that essentially allows learners and parents to go after the learning and to understand where learners are in their progression of learning. Technology is seen as an effective accelerator of learning. So this is a sample, a shot about and Power Platform. The Power Platform is a learning Management System where we house our curriculum, our resources, our assessments. All of the results are house on this so the learners can see where they are. Because in lindsay the learners will basically say this is where i am in my learning, this is where im going next, this is how im going to prove i have that. They own their learning. We have built structures and provided instruction to ensure that they come to a point of owning their learning. And a platform is not, this is not the only place for learning happens. We still have Adult Learning facilitators working directly providing direct instruction, providing small group instruction, individualize instruction. But when you have the content,h of the content accessible via technology, it allows the real 24 7 learning to happen for many of our learners. We all believe this, people learn in different ways in different time frames. The traditional educational structure of learners being grouped age and grade level, a a school year that is 180 days long, a lot of those structures, they dont honor this basic principle, the people learn in different ways at different time frames. What weve done in lindsay is we have replaced many traditional structures with a learner centered systems. Not all structures but many of them. Giving a few examples, a a thrh f grading does not exist in lindsay. Averaging grades, grade levels. We still of learners and grade levels but the way we understand the grade levels is very different. The use of technology. The use of space. Learning happening anywhere, not just in classrooms. Credentialing requirements. These are all traditional structures that are convenient for adults, not for adults funding on c time. Governance models come Effective School boards can be very powerful for advancing learning but inEffective School boards can also be a great hindrance to advancing learning in Public Education in america. The focus on limited to academic proficiency only. In lindsay your did demonstrate academic proficiency which also to demonstrate proficiency will refer to as our Lifelong Learning standards because of things like can you persevere, are you culturally aware, are you an economic producer and a global responsible citizen . You have to demonstrate those areas at all levels from a fiveyearold to an 18 year old so its not just academics. Its what kind of human beings are graduates becoming. Were replacing the structures with learner centered models. What is a producing . Just take a look at some of these results. Remembering our demographic. We went from a Graduation Rate in the low 70s to 92 . 42 of our graduates go straight to a fouryear university. Even though when the of them are free and reduced lunch. And 57 of those, the first of the fetish